Monday Night Football: Texans, Jets Heading in Opposite Directions

October 8, 2012 · No Comments

By TPR Staff

With what looked like a decent Monday Night Football match up on paper when the 2012 NFL schedule was first released, the Texans at the Jets now looks like it could see the mercy rule invoked. With the Texans on the rise, consistently beating teams by double digits, the flailing Jets, who were embarrassed at home last week by a 34-0 thrashing, look to be heading in the opposite direction.

So what has went wrong for the Jets? Well, where to begin, really? It all started with the curious decision to bring in Tim Tebow as a back up to starting quarterback Mark Sanchez. While head coach Rex Ryan was very clear on who his starter was, to welcome that type of media attention was just asking for trouble. As if the New York media isn’t rough enough, now having to deal with the Tebow question every time Sanchez throws an incompletion was just asking for trouble.

The results so far have been worse than expected, with Sanchez getting off to a rough start the first quarter of the season. He’s thrown 4 interceptions, been sacked 6 times, completed only 49 percent of his attempts. Rough going for a team who has had a defense that is currently ranked 20th in the league and giving up 27 points per game.

The loss of Darrelle Revis for the season just added lemon juice to the papercut, but it’s the running game that is seeing the Jets defense getting crushed. They’ve allowed 173 yards per game on the ground so far and going up against the Texans ground game that has Arian Foster and Ben Tate, who can easily take it to the house on any play, likely making New York nervous.

For the Texans, they’re off to the first 4-0 start in Houston pro football history and look to not be slowing down any. Their defense has the look of something special and J.J. Watt has been leading the way, including getting legitimate defensive player of the year talk. This can’t bode well for a Jets team who got blanked by the Niners last week at home.

Rumor has it that Houston is covering every angle and even planning some defensive packages for if Tim Tebow does make it into the game tonight. And that isn’t even mentioning the offense, which has been clicking on all cylinders with Matt Schaub looking better than he has in his career up to this point.

A couple of short seasons ago, the Jets were the conventional wisdom to be a Super Bowl favorite. But Mark Sanchez has gotten consistently worse since then and the injury bug has been far from kind to Rex and the boys. And now, it seems, the Texans are starting to lead that conversation.

I won’t go through specific details of what to look for tonight, but I can say with confidence if the Jets lay an egg at home, on the national stage, as they did last week, that seat the Rex Ryan is sitting on will go from white hot to nuclear before the sun comes up Tuesday morning.